North Sea's first FPSO heads to Brazil

The TenTech 685-design vessel, which was the North Sea's first FPSO when it was delivered in 1986 by NKK in Japan, is on its way to Brazil where it will be stationed 185km offshore to work on the Atlanta field.

The post-salt Atlanta field, in the Santos Basin, is a heavy crude oil field, estimated to contain about 190 MMboe recoverable, with a production life in excess of 15 years. Petrojarl I will be used as an early production system.

Once the unit arrives at the field, it will undergo field installation and testing prior to starting a five-year charter contract with a consortium led by Queiroz Galvão Exploração e Produção SA (QGEP), which is expected to start in Q1 2018.

Previous fields the vessel has worked on include Oseberg, Troll, Lyell, Fulmar, Balder, Fife, Fergus, Flora and Angus, Hudson, Blenheim, Kyle and, most recently, Glitne, in the Norwegian sector, from which it was removed in 2013.

Damen Shiprepair Rotterdam performed the vessel's redeployment overhaul. After extensive engineering (over 450,000 engineering hours), more than 50% of the process equipment was removed and replaced with new and additional equipment, required to treat heavy oil at the Atlanta field.

Damen says the available deck space presented major challenges during engineering and execution of the work on board, which was done by Damen and its subcontractors.